Authorisation tracking software brings together, for every employee and every contractor, the authorisations their role requires, their expiry dates and the evidence behind them. Before moving off Excel, ten questions help you check that a tool reflects how your site really works, handles renewals without re-keying and keeps you audit-ready all year round.
What is authorisation tracking software?
Authorisation tracking software links three pieces of information: the authorisations required for each role or area, the ones each person actually holds, and their expiry dates. It calculates renewal dates, alerts the right people before anything lapses and stores the evidence, for employees and for contractors' staff working on site.
Example: preparing for a demo
Let us take a typical situation. The SHEQ manager at a speciality chemicals site in the North West of England, classed as an upper-tier COMAH establishment, is attending a software demonstration on Thursday and wants to arrive with her own questions. Her Excel workbook has six tabs: electrical authorisations, ATEX zones, confined space entry, lift truck licences, safety training, and a tab added last year for contractors. In three months, the annual shutdown will bring around forty contractors onto site, so her question is simple: which tool will tell her, on the day, who is allowed to do what?
When does a spreadsheet stop being enough to track authorisations?
A spreadsheet stops being enough to track authorisations as soon as several people have to keep it up to date, contractors are added alongside employees and the information needs to be readable on the shop floor, at the moment of the job. The file stays accurate for whoever filled it in, but rarely for whoever reads it.
The warning signs SHEQ teams recognise
SHEQ teams know the warning signs well: dates copied by hand from PDF certificates, tabs that keep multiplying, and conditional formatting that turns a cell red without alerting anyone. Meanwhile, the stakes remain high. In Great Britain, HSE reports 680,000 working people injured at work in 2024/25 according to the Labour Force Survey, and 126 workers killed in work-related accidents in 2025/26. Every inspection comes back to the same expectation: being able to show, without delay, that the people doing the work are authorised to do it.
Which types of solution can you use to track authorisations?
Four types of solution can be used to track authorisations: the spreadsheet, the training module of an HR information system, the learning management system (LMS) and the frontline competency management tool. Each meets a different need, and the right choice depends mainly on who has to read the information, and when they need it.
| Type | Strength | Limitation for authorisations |
|---|---|---|
| Spreadsheet | Flexible and familiar | No alerts, only one person up to date |
| HRIS module | Reliable employee data | Rarely covers contractors |
| LMS | Training sessions and certificates | Tracks training, not the right to carry out work |
| Frontline tool | Role-based matrix, alerts, evidence | Requires a role-based framework to be built |
Solutions that are often combined
These types of solution are often combined: the LMS keeps a record of training, the HRIS supplies the employee list, and the frontline tool connects this data to roles and tasks.
Questions 1 to 4: does the software reflect how your site works?
The first four questions check that authorisation tracking software can describe your site as it really operates: requirements set by role and by area, authorisations stored with their full detail, renewal intervals that you define yourself, and a clean import of the history currently held in your Excel files.
| Question to ask | Expected answer |
|---|---|
| 1. Are requirements based on role and area? | Yes, each role or ATEX zone carries its required authorisations |
| 2. Does each authorisation keep its detail? | Scope, voltage level, equipment covered, restrictions |
| 3. Who sets the renewal intervals? | You do, authorisation by authorisation, with its own alert period |
| 4. How is the Excel history imported? | A guided import that checks for duplicates and missing dates |
For question 2, the SHEQ manager plans to bring a real electrical authorisation from the maintenance team, so she can see exactly how the tool records it.
Questions 5 to 7: does the software manage renewals without re-keying?
Questions 5 to 7 check that authorisation tracking software takes care of the repetitive work: alerting the right person at the right time, making the information easy for managers to read on the shop floor, and capturing training certificates without anyone having to copy dates across by hand.
| Question to ask | Expected answer |
|---|---|
| 5. Who receives the alert, and when? | The manager and SHEQ, with a lead time set per authorisation |
| 6. Can the manager see who is able to do the job? | Yes, on a tablet or phone, filtered on their team |
| 7. Are certificates captured automatically? | Yes, from the LMS or the training provider |
Information that can be read on the shop floor
Question 6 often decides whether the tool is adopted. A shift supervisor preparing an isolation at 5am will not open a shared workbook: they need an answer they can read in a few seconds, wherever they happen to be.
Questions 8 to 10: does the software cover contractors and audits?
The last three questions check that authorisation tracking software covers the full scope of an industrial site: contractors and agency workers, the evidence needed for an audit or an inspection, and a clear split of decisions and access rights between teams, so that everyone knows who validates what.
| Question to ask | Expected answer |
|---|---|
| 8. Are contractors' staff tracked? | Yes, with the evidence supplied by their employer |
| 9. Can audit evidence be produced quickly? | An export by site, role or authorisation, attachments included |
| 10. Who validates, and who sees what? | Role-based access and a history of validations |
Question 10 also reassures teams: tracking is there to make work safer, not to monitor individuals, and everyone knows who views their data and why. For agency workers, question 8 matters just as much, since they often join at short notice.
Why should you also track contractors' authorisations?
Tracking contractors' authorisations means checking, before each job, that contractors' staff hold the authorisations their employer has granted for the work planned on your site. In Great Britain, employers sharing a workplace must co-operate and co-ordinate their safety measures, and this check is a natural part of that co-ordination.
Regulations and co-activity
This duty comes from Regulation 11 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999. A 2023 study by Dares, the French labour ministry's statistics department, found that employees of subcontracting firms are more exposed to physical and organisational risks, citing co-activity between workers from different companies as an aggravating factor. The site's shutdown combines these situations: several companies, ATEX zones and confined spaces. She therefore expects software to receive the evidence before teams arrive and flag any gaps in advance, rather than at the gatehouse. The case of mobile maintenance teams is covered in "Authorisations for mobile technicians: how can you prove who is allowed to work, on your site or at the client's?".
How should you prepare for an authorisation tracking software demo?
To prepare for an authorisation tracking software demo, the most useful step is to arrive with three real cases from your site: an authorisation that expires soon, an urgent replacement to organise and a contractor to welcome on site. The tool then works on your own situations, rather than on a perfect demo dataset.
Three real cases on demo day
On Thursday, the SHEQ manager runs through her three cases. First, a maintenance electrician's low-voltage authorisation expires during the annual shutdown. Next, an operator authorised to work in an ATEX zone is absent, and the shift supervisor needs a replacement. Finally, a scaffolder from a contractor is due on site on Monday. With Klara, she sees the manager receive an alert with suggested refresher sessions, then the shift supervisor filter the authorisation matrix on the ATEX zone from a tablet. She leaves with her ten-question grid completed, and answers she can compare from one tool to the next.
How can you move off Excel without losing your authorisation history?
To move off Excel without losing your authorisation history, it is best to work in stages: clean up the existing file, build the role-based framework with managers, import the data, then run a pilot on a limited scope before extending the approach to the whole site.
Clean up the workbook: duplicates, missing dates, authorisations without evidence.
Build the framework of requirements by role and by area, with managers.
Import the history and check a sample of rows.
Run a pilot on one workshop or one family of critical authorisations.
Measure lapsed authorisations and audit preparation time, before and after.
The framework is the step that makes everything else reliable, because it is built with frontline teams. To go further, read "Authorisation management: what can be automated, and what should stay in human hands?" and "ISO 45001 audit: what evidence of authorisation and competence should you prepare?".
